


Nightscape

by Hijja



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-14
Updated: 2010-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-13 05:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hijja/pseuds/Hijja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months after the events on Air Force One, Alex confronts Yassen one last time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightscape

**Author's Note:**

> This owes a *huge* debt for inspiration and beta and canon discussion to Anne Phoenix, who knows her books better than anyone! :) Originally begun for the 'And even in our Sleep' prompt on the flash_rider LJ comm, but as always, time ran out and wordcount ran over.

The carpeted floor of Air Force One is stained with burns and littered with shards of glass and metal. Alex stands there, barefoot and clad only in his pyjama bottoms, vaguely wondering why the debris isn't cutting into the soles of his feet.

He has the niggling feeling that he's seen this before, has been here before, but the memory retreats with a giggle whenever he tries to reach for it.

There should be… _bodies_ , he thinks, and then there is one, on its stomach with its legs twisted in a way that would be agony for a living man. A stain the colour of rust has spread and dried underneath the torso, with random flecks speckling the back of the black leather jacket. Spikes of close-cropped hair look washed-out, greyish white rather than blond.

There were others, Alex recalls, not quite wanting to approach what's in front of him. He half expects Damian Cray to materialise too, torn into bloody rags by Air Force One's engine, or Sabina, peering into the cabin through the deformed, splintered doorway. But he remains alone, with the corpse, in a ring of devastation.

At last he kneels, again miraculously missing out on having his knees cut by splinters, and puts a shaky hand on the leather-clad shoulder. It is surprisingly easy to roll the body over.

Yassen Gregorovich's eyes are open, and the sight turns Alex's stomach. The ice-blue rings of iris around his pupils are unnaturally large and irregular, reminding him of nothing so much as blue egg yolk that has started to seep out, then coagulated mid-way. The skin of the assassin's face looks sunken and discoloured in places, as if faint blue-green bruises were forming underneath. The mouth is one thin grey line, accentuated at the left corner where blood has blackened into a crust.

Alex swallows with effort. He'd watched the assassin die, but this stark reminder of absence of life is different.

And then, from one second to the next, life _does_ glimmer in the dead eyes. The blood-encrusted lips twitch, and Alex flinches so hard he almost tumbles onto his behind.

"Alexsss…" the thing – and it is a corpse, Alex's mind gibbers, there can be no doubt, none at all! – groans, a hiss that slithers, fork-tongued, into his ears.

Yassen moves, dragging himself up into a half-sitting position with jerky movements. Death has erased the assassin's grace, if not his life.

Sitting up, he is suddenly much closer to Alex and a dry, musky smell hits Alex's nose. He recoils, or tries to. The dead eyes narrow, and then Yassen's hand shoots out, without any of the woodenness he's just displayed, and closes around Alex's throat.

Alex lets out a panicked little cry and reaches up to pull it away. Yassen's flesh feels leathery, almost like rubber. When Alex digs nails into the dead hand, the grip tightens. He swallows, and his Adam's apple rolls against the assassin's palm. He can still breathe – his breaths just come a little more laboured than before.

The half-dissolved irises fix him coldly.

"You killed me, Alex." There is no hiss to Yassen's voice now – the words come clear, clipped, deadly.

Protest breaks from Alex's lips. "I didn't! Damian Cray-"

"Cray pulled the trigger. But you, Alex... you made me weak, you made me doubt myself." The grip shifts until it cups the side of Alex's neck. "You made me forget my loyalties, forget who I was." The dead thumb strokes the thin, shivery skin over Alex's pulse point. "You killed me."

Fear hammers in Alex's chest, echoing up into his throat where Yassen can surely feel it. Even his lips throb. Sweat starts to break out on his forehead.

"You wanted me to live," Alex says, in a craw-like croak.

"I didn't want to be the one who killed you," retorts the hateful thing that Yassen has become. "But I couldn't have you live. You _infected_ me."

The unforgiving grip pulls Alex towards the assassin's chest. The bullet hole that mars it is stark against the white of Yassen's shirt. At first, Alex had assumed that the dark crust surrounding it was dried blood. Now, he can see that it is swarming with insects; tiny black beetles with metallic black backs, crawling over each other inside, in and around the wound.

"Infected." Yassen repeats and pushes Alex's head closer.

Alex whimpers and tries to turn his face away. The thought of feeling those things crawling onto him, into his nose and mouth makes his entire skin erupt into gooseflesh.

"Please!" he manages to force out before his mouth, one inch away from the crawling mass, fuses into a knife-blade line.

Yassen's hand tightens around Alex's throat. It makes dragging air into his lungs harder, and it hurts.

"You don't want to face what you did?" the assassin mocks.

Lips pressed together, Alex shakes his head in denial, frantically straining away from the teeming insects.

Yassen's grip looses a little, just enough for Alex to turn his face aside. It takes nearly all the courage he has left to open his mouth again.

"You said you loved me," he finally protests through the burn in his throat and his increasing light-headedness.

Yassen pulls him up, away from the insects and close to his dead face and terrible eyes. The blood that cakes the corner of the assassin's mouth has cracked when he started to speak, and now looks like the legs and body of a black spider, sitting there waiting. Alex shudders and looks away.

"I lied," Yassen hisses, shaking Alex by the neck for good measure. "I wanted you to trust me. To go to find Scorpia, and die."

"Why?" Even without the hand strangling him, Alex knows that his voice wouldn't come out any stronger than this weak mewl.

"Because your father was a traitor, little Alex – and because I was dying because of you."

"You knew?" Alex breathes.

"Of course I knew." The assassin's lip twists. "Do you think Scorpia's Executive Board would investigate the defection of its highest-ranking assassin without interrogating John Rider's closest friend? I saved your life once, to clear my debt to him. After that, I owed you nothing."

The free hand that isn't wrapped around Alex's throat taps against the almost healed bullet wound, left of centre on Alex's chest. It has healed well and quickly despite the hardships Alex has been through after incurring it. It only hurts from time to time, now.

Now, however, blood starts to spill, red and thick, under Yassen's fingers as if the wound had never healed at all. A gurgle escapes Alex's bruised throat. Yassen doesn't have to dig nails or fingers into the wound to make it bleed – he just puts gentle fingertips to the wrinkled scar and it bursts open.

Alex trembles at the thought of the beetles crawling in Yassen's death wound, but there is only a slow, lingering ache that is almost something else than pain radiating from his chest, and the slow trickle of red running down over his stomach until it soaks the waist of his pyjama bottoms.

"They should have aimed a little more carefully," Yassen says, almost tenderly. "I wouldn't have made the same mistake."

He draws a bloody finger along Alex's bottom lip as if applying lipstick, and Alex tastes the coppery warmth of it. He squeezes his eyes shut to stop them from burning.

"But now that you are here, it can be remedied."

Yassen's grip tightens around Alex's throat with final purpose, a vice that leaves no room for breath, or life, or mercy.

Alex hammers his fists against the assassin's unyielding shoulders, just once in a last explosion of fear, even though he knows that human strength, a boy's or an adult's, will mean nothing in the face of this opponent.

Yassen doesn't even acknowledge the blow. Instead, his hand bruises Alex's throat, squeezing and mangling the mortal flesh as if the assassin has changed his mind and intends to crush his larynx instead of choking the life out of him. The world ripples in front of his eyes, its edges doused in a film of red that starts dripping down in ropy lines, painting Alex's vision scarlet, and Alex knows that he is going to die here, wherever here is-

 

And then he starts up with a wheezing gasp, struggling for air that flows smoothly into his lungs until frantic breaths turn into a wracking cough. Sweat-drenched bed sheets tangle around his legs and he tears them away.

Outside the white curtains, it is still dark with only the faintest hint of light fringing the night sky. A look at the alarm clock on his nightstand shows 03:55 in poison-green digits.

He rolls onto his side, drawing his knees up to his chest. In a flash of memory, Yassen's dead face appears in front of his closed lids. He throws his arm over his eyes, willing the pressure to chase the images away. The bullet scar aches, but he doesn't dare touch his chest to see whether it is really bleeding.

He lies there, eyes tightly shut, while his bare feet and chest grow cold.

He doesn't sleep, and doesn't move until morning, when Jack comes to wake him for school.

 

  
_~ finis ~_   


 

 **Disclaimer:** Characters and concepts belong to Anthony Horowitz. I'm only experimenting with them a bit. No copyright or trademark infringement intended, no money made.


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